Heading for the Exits

The exit polling from some of today's Super Tuesday primaries is beginning to leak out giving some tantalizing hints as to what may transpire across the country. There are some surprises.

In Missouri, a closely-watched state because it tends to predict electoral winners, early Republican exit polling shows Gov. Mitt Romney at 34 percent, Sen. John McCain, 32 percent, and Gov. Mike Huckabee 25 percent. The race was predicted to be close in Missouri for the Republicans but this is a winner-take-all state and if Gov. Romney holds on to win, he would get 58 delegates and a major victory. Again, these are early voters and the numbers could change.

In Missouri's Democratic battle, Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by four points in early exit polling. This is a state where many Democratic voters still describe themselves as moderate or conservative and the percentage of African-Americans, who are supporting Sen. Obama heavily, is at only 12 percent. Sen. Obama received an important endorsement from Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill so that may be helping him.

The states in the American South are supporting Sen. Obama in great numbers in Democratic primaries there. Massachusetts, on which I posted earlier, still shows a tight race with Sen. Obama slightly ahead. Voting in the Oklahoma Democratic primary is heavily in favor of Sen. Clinton.

Returning to the Republicans, Sen. McCain is easily winning the states of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, as expected. In southern states, preliminary exit polling shows Gov. Mike Huckabee ahead in Alabama (42 percent to 33 percent for Sen. McCain, and 20 percent for Gov. Romney); in Tennessee, Gov. Huckabee leads over Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney, 34-28-23; and in Arkansas (where Mike Huckabee was governor), he leads over Sen. McCain and Gov. Romney, 33-21-19.

Now the big prize--California, a state where Gov. Romney has had a "surge" of his own. Exit polling (including two waves of data) shows a very close race, 40-38, Sen. McCain over Gov. Romney; this one could go down to the wire, no calls yet.

And this just in, the polls closed in Georgia about ten minutes ago and the networks have already called the Democratic primary for Sen. Obama in what is described as a rout. Half the voters in the Democratic Party electorate are African-Americans, so no real surprise there.

More poll closings in about 45 minutes [0100 UTC]. More results and polls as they come in.